The Infinite Dial

One of the ironies of the consumer electronics industry's attack on radio--specifically any attempt to mandate an FM in cellphones--is that it's taking place during a back-to-school shopping week. On the station I listened to for two hours the other night, I heard multiple consumer electronics retailers and wireless providers advertising PCs, notebooks, and, yes, cellphones. This week, in particular, radio is a particularly relevant technology to the electronics industry.

While I believe in the inclusion of an FM tuner in mobile phones, the notion of bartering it with Congress for a performance royalty is risky and easily attacked -- as the CEA's Gary Shapiro did -- in almost the same language with which broadcasters assailed the music industry in the first place. From the legislative approval of radio's consolidation to restrictions against LPFM, owners of an FM license have been the beneficiaries of much Congressional protectionism already. And 80% of our own talk hosts would be on the air already mocking any other industry that asked for this sort of intervention or any Congress that gave it to them.

Perhaps what radio should do instead is further demonstrate its own effectiveness. In my fantasy, broadcasters team up and create their own mobile phone. Of course, I'm still waiting for them to create a direct competitor to Pandora or take a stronger hand in designing the Infinite DIal of the future, rather than leaving the directory function of tomorrow's IP radio in the hands of people who make the CEA look like radio boosters.

But would it be crazy to suggest that the free advertising time that radio has given HD Radio for the last few years be redeployed to support those mobile devices that do contain an FM radio? There are, of course, challenges. Broadcasters are asserting that the low sales of existing devices are due to the products themselves and aren't a referendum on consumer interest. And the entire HD campaign proves that you have to pick your causes carefully. The campaign that sells an FM-compatible-smartphone will probably be focused on the phone itself, which would need many attractive features, not just FM.

And, of course, broadcasters have to be prepared to take advantage of actually being on mobile devices. But we know that radio can sell electronics. And this week is one of several each year that proves it. So why not make that industry feel the collective sting of our buggy whip?

First of all, don't get too excited about the press reports that Apple has applied for a patent to include HD radio technology in future iPods and iPhones. As iN3 Partners' Robert Unmacht points out, "This in no way means they will do it. Tech companies file for many things to protect themselves and never use it. There are power issues (the chip is a bit of a hog), space issues, and always cost issues."

But do ask yourself, what would broadcasters do if HD radio were available on the iPhone (or iPod or iPad)?

Many broadcasters think that being on the iPhone (or any smart phone) will automatically bring them greater engagement from younger listeners, simply by being on their platform of choice. But are broadcasters willing or prepared to engage with younger listeners? Are they going to offer them a second format choice for current music? Or will they continue to hope that 12-24s make do with two Top 40s and other formats (particularly Rock and Country) that play youth-oriented music sparingly?

Are broadcasters' HD multicast channels going to be ready for their close-up? It makes sense that we've moved from throwaway locally programmed channels to national ones. But many of those national stations are repurposed content and very few truly take advantage of the "WLS/CKLW national radio station for our times" potential of having a national radio station. So far, the only way to get a broadcaster to show a lot of interest in their multicast channel is to give them a translator (and thus a new FM frequency in the market) to relay it to.

Can multicast channels be rethought to provide the sort of services that smart phone users are looking for? Some have long thought that HD radio's ultimate function would be as a data provider. Can multicast channels, if available on a smart phone, be used to protect radio's current traffic and weather franchises?

Finally, are broadcasters going to take any more advantage of being on an iPhone (or any other phone) than they do of being available on the iPod Nano? Radio was very excited about being allowed a place on an iPod of any sort. But it was hard, at least at the outset, to find broadcasters who had engaged with radio on the Nano in any way (including using it much themselves). And have you heard anything about the Nano or song tagging in the last six months?

Among the many challenges HD Radio has faced, the idea that to hear country music in New York you would go to WKTU and then somehow switch to their HD2 channel was high on the list. Not exactly an obvious match (and not really any more obvious now that Clear Channel moved country to WLTW's HD2 location).

So kudos to CBS and WJFK in Washington for making all of WJFK's HD options re-broadcasts of sister sports talk stations in Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York. (And as an aside, did we know there even was an HD4 before this?)

At least this creates a congruent cluster of stations built around the mothership of WJFK. And perhaps, for some Washingtonians, a true reason to buy an HD Radio.

Of course, at the same time, all of these stations are and have been available on their streams. And if one really were that big an Eagles or Yankees fan or whatever, they were probably already streaming these stations, especially in a market like DC which is among the most high-tech areas of the country.

One item not covered in the press release -- will the play-by-play broadcasts of local sports teams be available? I have to believe Major League Baseball will not allow the Mets games to be broadcast in DC. Does anyone out there know?

All that said, congratulations to CBS for a creative use of HD real estate. It sure beats an untended music jukebox. We've already seen that that compels almost no one.

Good to see CBS continuing to roll out its local stations as HD multicasts in other markets, including bringing Alternative KROQ to San Diego and Hot AC KSCF (Sophie 103.7) to Los Angeles. It's a strategy that we've been endorsing for more than two years. Great local brands are better, even in other markets, than a hastily assembled local product or a white-label generic with local stagers.

That said . . .

Sophie, for those who will now be able to hear it, fills a need in a market that never got a direct replacement for KYSR (Star 98.7) when that station segued from Modern AC to Alternative. So does bringing WFAN New York to expatriate or wintering sports fans in Orlando, Tampa, and West Palm Beach.

KROQ, on the other hand, will be going against two local Alternative stations of relatively similar stripe. It will be interesting to see how that station's charisma stacks up against the also-world-famous XETRA-FM (91X) and KBZT on their own turf. And there are still CBS markets with no alternative station where KROQ would be welcome.

CBS, by the way, has done a great job of promoting its new Last FM Discover channel, which appears both on-line and on HD-2. To listen to any CBS station on-line (or view its Website) over the last few weeks has been to hear about Last FM Discover--another commendable alternative to the HD throwaways.

I wrote a few days ago about the new iPod Nano, and the killer combination of FM Radio and video capture that could make the new iPod a vibrant, participatory platform for radio stations to engage younger listeners. Here's another thing to think about. For almost a decade, radio has treated iPods and other MP3 players like the proverbial elephant in the room--all too aware that they had become an integral part of their listeners' lifestyle, but too afraid to acknowledge their use, lest they encourage listeners to migrate further away from radio and towards the retreat of the little white earbuds. But widespread distribution of this Nano (and make no mistake, like past iterations of the Nano, it's going to sell a bajillion units) could possibly have other unintended benefits for the industry as a whole.

Here's one: tagging. Previously relegated to the HD Radio minors, song tagging now gets its shot at the big leagues. Stations that talk about new music, should talk about tagging new music, whether you see a dime of those purchases or not. Can you imagine some scenarios where the kind of clickstream accountability that Google enjoys might be useful to demonstrate for radio? Even more specifically, can you imagine some upcoming licensing battles in which a clear demonstration of radio's power to sell music might be helpful? The Internet may have usurped much of radio's new music discovery position, but new music discovery on the Internet leads merely to music..ahem..."acquisition," while tagging leads to purchasing. The genie may be out of the bottle on torrents, peer-to-peer and other popular means of downloading free music, but if radio has a role in driving legitimate music sales, lets see it once and for all by talking about and encouraging tagging on the air, whenever possible. Let's sell some of these new iPods for Apple (as if they needed help) and let each new device serve as a portable purchase meter (or PPM for short--trademark pending) to demonstrate the power of radio as a new music platform AND a driver for purchasing behavior.

Not only will this help the radio industry prove its point regarding music licensing, it will also serve as an example of the tactical power of radio to drive purchases, period. You might dismiss this, and point out that the majority of listeners won't own one of these iPods, and that the numbers wont be all that attractive. Not at first, no. And maybe not ever. But life rewards action.

Two years ago, I took advantage of a $99 Radio Shack special and bought an HD Radio.

Fifteen months ago, I chronicled my experiences since then. The barely processed multicast stations of two years ago sounded a little better, but there weren't many more of them available. And even those of us who wanted HD Radio to work had to acknowledge the overall lack of station resources, the greater traction of other new platforms, the dubious creative being deployed on HD Radio's behalf, and stations that didn't manage to stay on the air consistently from day-to-day.

I could still write that column. But something interesting happened this week went I went back for another scan across the HD radio dial. Specifically, there are now 20 multicast stations available to me, twice as many as I encountered on my first visit two years ago. New NYC-area stations since the last survey include:

* 89.5 WSOU-HD-2 - Seemingly block programmed but doing Christian rock when I heard them tonight;
* 92.3 WXRK-HD-2 - Running the Alternative "K-Rock 2";
* 95.5 WPLJ-HD-3 - Not an additional signal from two years ago, but of greater utility to me since it began running Scott Shannon's "True Oldies Channel";
* 101.3 WCBS-HD-3 - Now simulcasting all-News WCBS-AM;
* 101.9 WRXP-HD-3 - Smooth Jazz since WQCD's departure in February;
* 102.7 WWFS-HD-2 - Norm Winer's Triple-A/Classic Rock "WNEW";
* 105.9 WCAA-HD-2 - All-salsa "La Kalle Dos"

Still MIA: WQHT-HD-3's planned South Asian format brokered by Worldband Media. It was announced in September and was supposed to be here in late October.

Now on the air, but not audible in my part of Northern New Jersey: WFUV-HD-3's Alternative format.

Okay, that's a net gain of six stations in 15 months. I heard that many pirate stations as I sat in Lincoln Tunnel traffic last night. I can get the entire AOL/CBS Radio suite of stations by opening my AOL Instant Messenger now. And I don't have to move an antenna to one the three different places in my den required to pick up various signals.

But doing the math on the stations tonight vs. two years ago did come as a little bit of a surprise; put it together with an increased number of radios near that $99 price point (only available as a special in 2006), and the recent use of HD-2 multicasts to provide programming to an FM translator (meaning that stations might actually put some resources into those stations now) and you can see the industry continuing to trudge on, despite the calls to move on.

Last summer, WFUV New York announced a forthcoming HD multicast channel, helmed by 30 Under 30 honoree Rich McLaughlin, that would be more alternative/indie rock focused than the non-commercial outlet's existing Triple-A format. WFUV's "The Alternate Side" launched earlier this month on HD-3 and a few days ago at thealternateside.org.

In recent months, several toes have been stuck into New York's indie rock scene. Active WXRK (K-Rock) has its HD/on-line K-Rock 2. Triple-A WRXP has had an indie component as well; a recent station show featured the Ting-Tings, Duke Spirit, Airborne Toxic Event, and Mike Doughty. But the competition is also KEXP Seattle, which is using WNYE as a local outpost, and L.A.'s KCRW, which has a local following as well.

One nice touch is that WFUV-HD-3 is hosted. While being a college station whose HD-1 station is staffed by some well-known professional names does give you a built-in base of potential DJs, that still sets them apart from a lot of their multicast competition.

Here's WFUV-HD-3 at 3 p.m. on Saturday:

Ben Folds & Regina Spektor, "You Don't Know Me"
The Ting-Tings, "Shut Up And Let Me Go"
Okkervil River, "Lost Coastlines"
Groupo Fantasma, "Arooz Con Frijoles"
Chicha Libre, "El Barrachito"
Radiohead, "House Of Cards"
Ween, "Your Party"
Kooks, "Naive"
Michael Franti & Spearhead, "Say Hey (I Love You)"
Thievery Corporation, "Sound The Alarm"
Eagles of Death Metal, "Wannabe In L.A."
Hercules & Love Affair, "Blind"
Blur, "Beetelbum"
TV On The Radio, "Crying"

One of the most fascinating stories of recent months has been the terrestrial broadcasters who are using the combination of HD-2 multicast channels and FM translators as a way of giving themselves an additional berth on the FM dial. Cumulus has used this strategy to move its Urban AC in Harrisburg, Pa., from AM to FM. Saga has used it to launch a new Triple-A in Asheville, N.C. Now, DCRTV reports that WAMU Washington, D.C., is simulcasting its HD-2 Bluegrass channel on a Northern Virginia translator that had previously carried non-commercial Triple-A WTMD Baltimore's programming. The station is quick to position the simulcast as an experiment. (Unlike Asheville and Harrisburg's Websites, which treat the translator as the main frequency, there is not yet a mention of the new frequency on the station's Website.)

WAMU's move is interesting for a number of reasons. Its bluegrass programming certainly had a devoted following. If any format could sell an HD radio (no need for HD detractors to expend any energy on that first clause), this would have been it. It's hard to imagine a 250-watt repeater in Great Falls, Va., making any format a market powerhouse, but like Urban AC on FM in Harrisburg, it will likely find a following. Beyond that, it shows the rapid spread of this concept from major groups to, now, NPR affiliates.

It's been clear almost since the inception of HD multicast channels that they would more likely find their largest audience somewhere other than on an HD radio. Multicast stations always deserved more resources than they got, just in the interest of staking out a future place on The Infinite Dial. Perhaps using them as a way to get an additional FM frequency means that broadcasters will take their multicasts more seriously. Or make sure they're always on the air.

The news broke earlier this week that WorldBand Media was teaming with Emmis Communications to broadcast a South Asian-targeted format on the HD-3 multicast channels of Emmis' WQHT (Hot 97) New York, KPWR (Power 106) Los Angeles, and WLUP (the Loop) Chicago. The stations are expected to be up and running in mid-October. But it's one of the most significant HD Radio announcements and I wanted to make sure it came to everybody's attention in more than passing.

One of the many foibles in our industry's development of HD Radio to date is that something like this or Beasley's reggae channel in Miami hasn't happened sooner: a station targeted to an underserved audience that might actually buy an HD radio at the right price point. Dismiss it if you want as HD becoming a throwback to the FM subcarriers of a decade (or more) ago, but those broadcasters became specialists in providing niche programming and finding an audience to subscribe to it.

At a time when most HD broadcasters don't have the time, or, frankly, the incentive to give their HD multicast channels the attention or resources that might compel the purchase of an HD radio, the irony is that there are probably a lot of people who would like to program those channels. WorldBand Media's programming would probably make sense in a lot of markets.

Lots of activity this week on the HD Radio front, led off by Chuck Taylor's excellent piece in R&R (which quoted some Edison data) about the progress of HD radio adoption in the US. HD has certainly been a lightning rod for flames this year--note the differing headlines on these two sites, PC Week and the Washington Post, that use the same Chuck Taylor story!

Chuck was nice enough to interview me for this piece, which led Jon Gordon, from the excellent program on American Public Media, Future Tense, to call me and chat further about the progress of HD Radio adoption and what my thoughts were on the limiting factors behind its slow uptake. I've linked the interview below--luckily he called me in the early morning while I still had my good "radio voice" working :)

In both Chuck's piece and the Future Tense interview, I tried to establish what I thought were the real issues behind HD's slow growth. The central challenge is that you have a national "product," the HD Radio Receiver, with a national rollout and national messaging. The programming, however, varies considerably from market to market, and very little of it is driven by consumer demand or even consumer insight. Some markets have great HD programming, but here where I live, not so much. So it is hard for the typical consumer to get excited about HD when there is no clear content offering to sell. Soma FM is the same great online radio wherever I listen to it. Howard is Howard, no matter where your Sirius is located. But radio is trying to package and sell a national answer to these challengers with no consistency in product. It is as if we are trying to install Coke machines in every market, but some we forget to fill, and in others we only stock Mr. Pibb and RC Cola.

HD has to start with great, new digital brands first, with distribution over HD receivers AND online, and at least some of these have to be big, high profile national shows. Radio's goal should be compelling digital brands for the future, and in that context HD radio is just one means of distribution. I think there has been a lot of negative energy spilled over HD, just as there have been a lot of stakeholders who have led themselves to believe that HD is their "answer" to online and satellite radio competition. Our answer to online competition should be great online programming--additional, free distribution over the HD airwaves then becomes a strategic advantage. It isn't an "either/or" proposition.

There are simply too many "jukebox" HD-2 channels. At a recent summit on the topic, I heard one industry executive note that HD is taking time, but so did FM. The implication was that HD will follow the same natural progression. I think that is a mistake, and the "jukebox" issue exposes it. When FM was beginning its rise, free music was an economically scarce quantity--the only source for free music was the radio, so FM had greater economic value as one of its sole providers. Today, free music, in the form of online jukeboxes, file sharing and peer-to-peer music networks, is no longer scarce, but an economic commodity. So in order to provide real value (enough value to monetize), radio can't remain in the commodity business in that environment. The industry has to create value through the creation of strong, passionate brands that may be augmented by music, but that stand for something more than "one great song after another." One example is "The Strip," in Dallas. The programming on The Strip does a wonderful job of not just providing music, which is a commodity, but evoking a sense of place and a mood that is truly unique. The answer for side channels is not to replicate online jukeboxes (how many of them are really successful, anyway?) but to build unique brands that generate true passion.

The solution is not a programming issue but an HR strategy issue. Building those brands takes the time, resources and energy of radio's fantastically talented programmers and creative staff--all of which they don't have, because many are already programming 3-5 broadcast stations. So often the HD-2 channel gets relegated to the back burner. It's simple math, really--if a programmer spends 40+ hours a week making their broadcast programming compelling, what makes the radio industry think we can toss off HD-2 channels over lunch breaks? It is an old business school adage--you get what you measure. When the industry starts measuring itself on the quality of its HD-2 programming, then it will devote the resources it needs to create truly compelling brands, and get them in as many soda machines as it can.

Future Tense Interview: MP3 - iTunes

When considering the problems that broadcasters have had making listeners buy an HD Radio, consider that ethnic broadcasters once regularly found an audience that was willing to obtain a special receiver to listen to FM subcarrier programming. While the subcarrier market has declined with the Internet, it did create an audience that understood "stations between the stations" and broadcasters who knew how to market to them.

So it makes sense that Beasley WPOW (Power 96) Miami has switched its HD-2 multicast channel from dance to Reggae as "Pirate Radio 96-2." (Beasley is already doing a Reggae format in Ft. Myers.) Even though, as the name suggests, there are plenty of pirate broadcasters in South Florida, it's one of those markets (New York is the other) that has long needed a full-time station targeted to the Caribbean community. While this station starts off with all the challenges of HD Radio except one, it does begin its life with a viable franchise.

One of HD-2's challenges seems just to be staying on the air. At DCRTV.com, Dave Hughes gave Clear Channel's eRockster (now heard on WWDC's multicast channel) a plug only to note the next day (July 12) that it was off the air, as was WTOP's HD-3 traffic/weather channel. That's an experience I've had with many of New York's HD-2 channels as well, by the way. "What's even more pathetic about the "here-one-day-and-gone-the-next" status of local HD Radio channels is that I'm probably the only one who's noticing the absences," Hughes writes.

There wasn't much written when Clear Channels WXRA Lexington, Ky., switched from Latin to R&B Oldies last month -- it's a format that doesn't get much press, particularly in a small market. But the new WGVN (Groovin' 1580) is particularly interesting, not only because there aren't a lot of full-fledged terrestrial R&B Oldies stations, but also because this one is a Clear Channel Format Lab offering making its way from the broadcaster's HD-2 multicast stations to a terrestrial outlet.

Groovin' 1580 uses the same "old school hits from the '80s, '70s, and '60s" imager as the Format Lab's "The Groove," currently running on the HD-2 multicast channels at WWSW Pittsburgh, KOHT Tucson, Ariz., KALZ Fresno, Calif., and WMKS Greensboro, N.C. (The only time the two formats diverged when we heard both this afternoon was when WGVN was running spots; it also runs Tom Joyner in mornings.)

What's most interesting here is hearing the format in a different context. In between the format mainstays, Groovin' 1580 has been offering up a few songs that wouldn't be so unusual on a Web-only R&B Oldies station. But when was the last time you heard a terrestrial station play "So" by War? "Higher Plane" by Kool & the Gang? "Cissy Strut" by the Meters? "We Got The Funk" by Positive Force (outside New York, anyway)?

Here's an hour or so of the format, taken from WGVN, at 12:45 this afternoon:

KC & the Sunshine Band, "Keep It Comin' Love"
Commodores, "Machine Gun"
Isley Brothers, "Fight The Power"
Maze, "Joy And Pain"
Bootsy's Rubber Band, "Bootzilla"
Aretha Franklin, "Freeway Of Love"
Taylor Dayne, "Tell It To My Heart"
Van McCoy, "The Hustle"
Patti Labelle, "New Attitude"
James Brown, "Night Train"
Rose Royce, "Car Wash"
Archie Bell & Drells, "Tighten Up"
Wild Cherry, "Play That Funky Music"
Debbie Deb, "Look Out Weekend"
Erick Sermon, Keith Murray, Redman"Rapper's Delight"
Ready For The World, "Oh Sheila"
Barrett Strong, "Money (That's What I Want)"
Barry White, "What Am I Gonna Do With You"

AOL unveiled its new player today that incorporates the streams of CBS Radio's terrestrial and online/HD2 stations. The design will be familiar to anybody who has streamed a CBS station recently -- an oversized version of CBS' Play.It player. You can see it here.

Meanwhile, I recently had an industry buddy pass along the link for CBS' previously reported on AllNumberOneRadio.com, suggesting that the service is finally finding a constituency of chart/music junkies. For those following it, AllNumberOneRadio, whose broad gold mix includes a lot of forgotten '90s rhythmic music, is now playing its No.1 song (Lil Wayne's "Lollipop") only every other hour.

When I bought my HD radio 18 months ago, a Radio Shack clerk cheerfully admitted that he wasn't able to demonstrate it for me because there was no signal in the building. This particular store was in a low-rise '50s-era standalone structure -- not the kind of glass and chrome tower or concrete mall/fortress where you could count on having a problem, either. But even there, the HD radio wasn't even plugged in, if I recall.

That's why, according to a report in TWICE, Ibiquity has placed "retail demonstration modules" (RDMs) that connect to up to 10 HD Radios at a time to walk consumers through a simulated demo delivered through the radio's own speakers. Ibiquity's retail development specialist notes that most consumer electronics outlets don't have antennas even for FM radio because "consumers have not needed FM demonstrated to them," for decades.

Having some way of demonstrating HD radio is better than nothing, of course, but two things are a little concerning here:

1) Whatever you think of the various HD radio ad campaigns, this is again likely to be institutional creative that will focus on the product in the abstract and not what's available in your market.

2) What this brings home is just how long it's been since I last walked into a consumer electronics store and heard any radio other than satellite radio. It may have been 35 years since anybody needed a demo of FM, but FM was, of course, the soundtrack of many stereo stores for a long time after that. Bad enough that radio has lost the local deli to satellite -- losing a more music-oriented environment rankles worse.

We're big fans of the power of No. 1 at Edison Media Research. The concept of the No. 1 song, so potent for so many years, has been downplayed by radio over the years, even as America became more chart conscious in other ways. So we were eager to check out Biill Gamble's NumberOneRadio.com, the new Internet station that is being carried on the HD-2 channel of KXKL (Kool 105) Denver, but, like many of the new CBS Radio channels, is clearly designed as a national offering.

NumberOneRadio is billed as No. 1 songs from the '60s through today. While there's an AC feel and an apparent emphasis on the late '80s and '90s music that falls through the cracks at a lot of other formats, the scope is broad (as the segment below demonstrates). The station is also playing the current No. 1 song once an hour -- a variant on what Top 40 sisters KKHH (Hot 95.7) Houston and WBZW (B94) Pittsburgh are doing. The jockless station is also running promos asking listeners to be the first to contact the station from their hometown, wherever that may be.

Here's an hour of NumberOneRadio.com at 7:30 this morning:

Savage Garden, "Truly Madly Deeply"
Leona Lewis, "Bleeding Love"
Prince, "When Doves Cry"
Bobbie Gentry, "Ode To Bilie Joe"
Janet, "All For You"
U2, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories, "Stay (I Missed You)"
Jan Hammer, "Miami Vice Theme"
Enrique Iglesias, "Be With You"
Rod Stewart, "Do You Think I'm Sexy"
Sinead O'Connor, "Nothing Compares 2 U"
Paula Abdul, "Straight Up"
George McCrae, "Rock Your Baby"
Mariah Carey, "I Don't Wanna Cry"

That's the question I posed as moderator of a panel on HD Radio at the recent Radio and Internet Newsletter (RAIN) Summit in Las Vegas. The panelists, which included John Gehron, Dan Halyburton, SOMA FM's Rusty Hodge, Ibiquity's Don Kelly and Jeff Vidler from Solutions Research, seemed to come to a unanimous "mend it" decision--but you can judge for yourself here, by watching the video.

So it looks like CBS Radio wasn't willing to give the legacy of heritage rocker WNEW-FM New York to Emmis and the WRXP people after all. Since its February launch, WRXP has been pretty overtly trying to answer the question, "What would WNEW-FM have sounded like if it had carried on through today?" Now, CBS is trying to answer that question itself with the launch of WNEW.com as a Website and as the HD-2 channel on the station's former frequency, 102.7, now the home of AC WWFS.

Programmed by WXRT Chicago's Norm Winer (who has also put in an appearance or two as "Norm" in the last hour), the station will be tied in to CBS's Last FM and will also use listeners as "staff" to introduce segments. (There is no mention in the station release of how it will be tied into CBS' new AOL Radio initiative.) On its first moning, Winer and the "staff" were taking turns setting up live performances and interviews from the station's archives, including one of the late Scott Muni, WNEW's longtime PD and best known staffer, and Aerosmith.

Here's what makes sense about the WNEW move: While the need to buy a HD Radio or stream Triple-A has been reduced for New Yorkers in recent months, it's still a well-loved brand and one with national potential on The Infinite Dial (if more for expatriate New Yorkers than others).

The flipside to going after the WNEW legacy, of course, is that even unscoped airchecks of the station from 1978 would have a hard time living up to its most fervent listeners' memories of the station. The other problem is that those fervent listeners are remembering the station from its most specialized era. The most successful WNEW-FM from a ratings standpoint was the late '80s/early '90s version that was a typically conservative response to the rise of Classic Rock. And if there's any station that demands that you bring back some of the former staffers in actuality, and not just in actualities, it's this one. And many of those personalities are now working elsewhere.

But it's an intriguing idea and one that made my co-workers look up from their desks this morning. And here's hoping that Winer receives the resources a station like this would need to work on an ongoing basis.

Here is an hour of WNEW.com at 10:20 this morning:

Elvis Costello, "Less Than Zero (Live)"
Peter Gabriel, "Solsbury Hill (Live)"
Wallflowers, "One Headlight"
Aerosmith, "Love In An Elevator" (preceded by an interview clip with Scott Muni)
The Band, "Up On Cripple Creek (Live)"
Beatles, "She Said She Said"
Bob Marley & Wailers, "Could You Be Loved"
Goo Goo Dolls, "Slide"
White Stripes, "My Doorbell"
Snow Patrol, "Chasing Cars"
Stevie Wonder, "Living For The City"
Led Zeppelin, "Trampled Under Foot"
U2, "I Will Follow"
Soul Asylum, "Black Gold"
Wilco, "Walken"

HD Radio has so far failed to gain the traction that the radio industry had hoped for, leading to a lot of questions about the future success of the platform. Both Sean Ross and Larry Rosin have offered up some good ideas for HD in this space, so I'd like to take up the gauntlet and humbly offer a few more, and perhaps a different way of thinking about the problem.

First of all, let's begin with a simple declaration--there will be digital radio in the future, and nearly everyone will have it. After all, while HD Radio has been a favorite whipping boy for a lot of pundits, I don't think anyone can argue with the simple assertion that radio cannot remain the last analog holdout amongst major media channels--there will be digital radio of some form, and (eventually) it will simply be the way radio is delivered (and all radios manufactured), with no decision-making required on the part of the customer.

Unfortunately, Radio's current digital solution is a closed model, not an open source model--which is rarely favorable as a mass-market business model for hardware. Ask the folks at Toshiba about HD-DVD (and ask the folks at Sony--who should not be gloating about Blu-Ray--about Betamax, the ATRAC format, and my poor, lamented MiniDisc player.) It will only be when everyone can make an HD radio, that everyone will make an HD radio--that's technology adoption 101. Still, HD is the hand we are dealt, so we can either fold or play the cards as best we can--which is what I propose here.

Since we in and around the radio industry are not in the business of selling radios, we shouldn't get too exercised about how the hardware is marketed. What we can focus on is great programming, and like Larry Rosin, I believe HD's best shot in the short term is with national brands. Beyond that, however, it is vital that we also focus on what the business model for HD Radio programming can become (and not the business model for selling radios) because as I posted earlier here, when what you are selling is available for free, you'd best focus on selling something else that isn't.

To date, HD's programming efforts have been focused on music offerings, and many of those geared to non-mass appeal audiences; either younger listeners with new music-only channels, or more adventurous takes on alternative, dance and even classic country. Most of these efforts spring from one of three central propositions: HD radio solves a "music/sound quality" problem, a "music variety" problem, or HD solves the "youth" problem. The first is easily dispensed with. There are only so many "audiophiles" out there, and if anything the continuing encroachment of low bit rate digital music file purchases (and how this has impacted the way recordings are engineered) into the space formerly occupied by "pristine" CD files points to the "quality" issue as a non-starter with Joe Six-Pack. But what about the "variety" or "youth" propositions?

None of these music-focused offerings are designed to provide HD Radio with its best chance for rapid, mass adoption, but are instead focused on solving some "problem" with broadcast radio. In other words, we are asking consumers to purchase and use a product or service that does the same thing, only a little better, as the thing they get now for for free--instead of a service that gives them something they cannot currently get. The former is a recipe for marginal or incremental gains, while the latter paves the way for potential paradigm-busting success. What I would suggest here is that we are asking people to purchase and consume something new, so let's give them something new and/or previously unavailable as an incentive.

Now, there is nothing wrong with trying to increase our variety perception, or attracting more young people to radio--it's just that using an unknown quantity like HD is simply too many balls in the air to effectively address these issues. Let's take the "youth" issue. I can certainly understand the rationale of the consultants and programmers who posit that HD channels might be a compelling reason for younger listeners to return to radio, and are thus using HD channels as a means to attack radio's precipitous declines with 12-24 year olds. There are two real problems with this model. The first is with the sustainability of the business model. To a 12-24 year old, music is available for free. Even if these channels could gain any traction with younger demos, as soon as radio starts to play around with ways to monetize these young-leaning music streams, they'll become Napster Version One-style ghost towns overnight.

The other problem is more of a math problem. To date, we have shown no signs of being able to solve the problem of declining 12-24 numbers, which will soon manifest as 12-29 and 12-34 numbers. That's neither pessimistic nor optimistic--it's math. If our solution to the "youth problem" is meant to solve for the "HD problem," that's too many variables. We are solving for x=y without knowing x or y, which your ninth grader will tell you is impossible. My wife the scientist tells me that you can only solve for one variable in an experiment when you can control for the others. To solve for y, then, you need to be able to solve x. Throwing a bunch of younger leaning music streams out there is asking for a behavior change along two axes (come back to radio AND buy an HD)--that's too many variables, and that just never works in marketing.

So, my "groundbreaking" idea is to simply focus on the best solution for HD, and let's leave radio's other problems for other experiments. I am a big fan of TLC's "What Not To Wear," where style consultants Clinton Kelly and Stacy London attempt to salvage train wreck wardrobes and get their unsuspecting fashion victims to dress better and recognize their strengths and weaknesses. One of the most common themes of the show is the 30-something female who, believing that she will eventually lose weight, continues to dress in the sizes she wore in high school or college. Clinton and Stacy's sage advice is always the same--"you dress for the body you have, not the body you want." Radio, the body you have is 30-something and older, not as much into music as they used to be, and yes, gaining some weight. If we want to jump-start HD Radio NOW, let's dress for the body we have.

To that end, music radio may not be the best lever to force HD Radio's adoption, and as noted earlier is an increasingly shaky platform for a sustainable business model, whether ad-supported or subscription, when so much is available for free. That's not to say that there could not and should not be HD music channels (certainly your existing broadcast music station should be available in HD before we go monkeying with side channels), just that our best shot is to provide something new and previously unavailable (yet desirable) if we are going to change an ingrained, habitual behavior. Simplifying the model to create a sustainable, monetized product for 30-64 year old listeners gives us a filter not to think "outside the box," but to think, in a very simple way, inside a much bigger box. With that in mind, here are three very simple ideas such a thought process naturally generates--and I'd love to read some of your constructive thoughts here as well, so do send in your comments.

1. Rebroadcast National TV Audio, with spot replacement. My wife has an XM Radio and though I have continually reminded her that she has never once tuned to 98% of the channels (including, as previously discussed, none of the music channels), it's her ability to hear CNN in bed at night or on the way to work in the morning that compels renewal. I cannot watch TV while I work, but I would certainly have the audio on for CNN, MSNBC or CNBC all day. Splitting the avails between the networks and the stations would be a way for the cable channels to extend their brands, and give you some attractive inventory to sell locally. HD would be providing a genuine, compelling service here using a sustainable ad-supported revenue model that does not require a subscription--truly an attractive, new offering. I expect to get some mail on this one, excoriating this viewpoint as "giving up," or "outsourcing" to TV what we should be doing ourselves. Let's face it--we don't have the resources to do MSNBC locally, so if we are going to do it nationally, why try to build a new brand from scratch? Again, my theme here is rapid adoption of HD Radio by providing the most compelling commercially sustainable offerings possible to the listeners we have. Returning growth to broadcast radio is another topic, another day. Might a suite of TV audio channels cannibalize an existing news/talker in a market? Well, it might force the weaker ones off, yes. Good for radio.
2. What else are 30-64 year old people listening to? Look in your own cars, or ask people at the gym and you will hear another very common answer--audiobooks. If you could get a chapter every day of the new Grisham book delivered with a few ads during drivetime, would you do it? With liberal repeats throughout the day and week to allow people to catch up (which shows like "24" rarely have the luxury of doing) ad-supported audiobooks could be a real win-win for publishers (who are also under intense revenue pressure) and stations. There is gold in the back catalogs of a lot of audiobook publishers, whose current business model depends very heavily on audiobooks of current best-sellers. There could be a very attractive deal to rebroadcast great, older books (not Great Books, I gave that battle up...) that are not generating a ton of sales revenue but could live again as advertising (or sponsorship) supported audio content. Look at what Oprah has been able to do with this same back catalog!
   
   Now, there are certainly some valid objections to this model, including the potentially fallacious presumption that people will tune to the same channel every day for an extended period of time so that they don't miss their place in the "story." I would note two things here: first, the data on listening to multiple-hour shows like Limbaugh and All Things Considered suggests that people will in fact listen for long blocks of time, every day. Thousands and thousands of people bought the last season of Lost on DVD and "power-watched" the whole thing in preparation for this year's season premiere, so let's not overstate the whole "attention span" argument. If we can produce appointment radio, we should. Second, well, maybe it won't work. There's no better time or place to take a flyer, however, than on HD radio, right now. Too many voices out there are focused on preaching why it can't work. What if it does?
3. An HD side-channel also gives radio stations a local option for a potentially lucrative sponsorship model in all-local, all citizen-generated content. This, in a sense, would be a return to the days of small-market, full-service radio--but we let the citizens do the work. By distributing a few mobile digital recorders out there we could record every town council meeting, every important local speech, every local basketball game (with student play-by-play) and every local drama production, and you'll find someone to sponsor all of it. In a market like mine (Raleigh-Durham) no commercial broadcast station would dare broadcast anything smaller than the UNC or Duke basketball games, but a hyper-local HD channel could cover high schools in Chapel Hill, Durham, Burlington, Raleigh and suburbs and sell radios in droves to parents and attractive, cost-effective sponsorships to local businesses that could benefit from a hyper-targeted advertising vehicle. At a time when radio broadcasters are being assaulted on all sides for a lack of localism, a hyper-local side channel could be a modest way to attract one micro-audience at a time and build a high-cume, low TSL sponsorship-driven business model that would also give the radio industry some much-needed PR.

Incidentally, I challenged myself to think outside of my own "box" and see if there wasn't a model that could do all of the things I suggested not doing earlier--i.e., win the youth demo with a music-driven format. So, let's break some rules: The jukebox will never do it, because the ubiquity of social media outlets has trained younger demos to be distrustful of media that they cannot manipulate, alter or otherwise contribute to. Calling a request line is a completely "black box" process--the listener gains no immediate gratification, no evidence that their request made a difference, and no visible sign it was even received. This, with tools like Twitter, Facebook and Last.FM allowing any 12-year old to be an Internet star any time they want. So, my simple/radical idea would be to bring back The Box as a radio model, with a web-based music selection interface that hooks directly into a version of "DJ Select"--in other words, you put up a widget on the site giving listeners a choice between 5 or 6 hot new songs, and when the last song ends, the one with the most votes plays on the air--and the "winning voters" get their comments/dedications scrolled on the site under the player or perhaps even read by a jock on the HD channel. Completely transparent, user-driven music (within some music database parameters) that is trusted because it can be touched.

In the end, however, our best chance to drive rapid HD adoption is to provide our current best customers with the best possible audio we can, wherever it comes from. This is not ceding anything to other media channels; this is Darwinism, pure and simple. I would love to hear a radio show that would beat the pants off of Keith Olbermann, but if I can't, I'd love to hear Keith Olbermann. MSNBC broadcasts radio shows on TV, so why not run the model in reverse? I look forward to your comments, flames and kudos--but my humble suggestion is to solve one problem at a time, and dress for the body you have.

We've long felt that HD Radio -- whatever its challenges -- would be better off with national brands instead of a suite of ill-tended brand extensions. So it's worth noting that Citadel has put its Scott Shannon's True Oldies Channel network on WPLJ New York's HD-3 multicast, effectively replacing an all-'70s station. It's not a hard call, of course, since Shannon is WPLJ's morning host and TOC is far more fully realized than the all-'70s format (which, for those of us who enjoy "Chevy Van" occasionally, is still being used as the fill music for network breaks). With WRXP having exiled the former WQCD Smooth Jazz format to HD-2, it's actually a relatively good month for new multicast content -- always a frustration -- at least in New York. (A note on that, as well, the HD-2 outlet is actually calling itself "Smooth 101.9," although the CD101.9 name perseveres on the Website.)

This article recently appeared in the Jan. 18 issue of Radio & Records.

"I Want My MTV." Probably no message could have been more powerful in the adoption of cable television. It got millions of teenagers and others to know that they just had to get cable television.

What can the radio industry do to get people to "want their HD?"

As the radio industry continues to discuss all aspects of HD Radio, from the technical side, the marketing perspective, the hardware, the chips, the signals, and the costs - I want to make sure that the industry focuses primarily on the most important aspect of all: The Programming.

Up until now, the marketing of HD Radio has largely been directed to awareness of the existence of HD as a concept. This has made sense - no one is going to want HD Radio until they know what it is.

But the first wave of HD Radio marketing almost went out of its way to avoid telling consumers what the programming might be. And of course no one is going to want it until they know what programming is available.

The second wave of advertising, with spots that listed myriad format choices, at least began to discuss the programming, but they were deceptive at best. Listing formats that are available somewhere but not necessarily available to the person hearing the commercial runs the risk that someone goes and gets an HD Radio looking for the Alternative Rock channel those spots talk about, or the reggae channel or whatever.

All this speaks to an essential problem - the HD Radio spots are produced nationally, but are run locally. So they haven't pushed the local programming that is available.

Now, many are arguing that the answer is to start doing spots touting the available local programming. And while I don't dispute that, I have a more radical proposal: Instead of marketing the local HD options, we should be nationalizing the HD radio stations.

Think about it. Right now, the overwhelming majority of HD stations are barely-produced, barely-tended jukeboxes. The HD Alliance worked to create a system to put formats on that were additive instead of duplicative, in most places. And that's great. But if there is no Alternative station in your market, what would be more compelling? A no-DJ Alternative jukebox? Or KROQ in Los Angeles? Yes, with the traffic updates, Lakers scores, and everything else. My instincts say: KROQ in a landslide.

I have listened to WKTU-New York's HD-2 Channel, which attempts to provide Country music to the Country-less masses here in Gotham. Of course I like the music, but there is no other reason to listen to this station. There is no production, no spark, no nuthin' at all. Wouldn't I be vastly more entertained if Clear Channel just put on WSIX? Great talent, great production - everything we think radio is all about - even if there were information about Nashville.

After all, since forever people in the UK have listened to 'national' radio that is overly London-centric, and people across Hungary listen to radio that is almost all about Budapest. We've researched it, and at most it is a mild annoyance to listeners from other cities. I could deal with discussions of who is playing at the Bluebird tonight; in fact I might really want to know.

Then again, we could consider as an industry to create nationalized HD-only stations. The only realistic chance that the resources will be applied to create 'great' radio stations of the type that will make us all proud of the kind of radio we are capable of making.

Here are more reasons we should consider nationalizing HD Radio:

* For HD to achieve the goal of bringing 12-24s back to the radio, we need an incredible 12-24 station. Everyone tells me there's tons of national 12-24 business and no local business. So why not create a mechanism to go after that business?

* The day is coming, or essentially here, when every station is available everywhere. We've said in the past that this is a valid reason to soldier on with HD -- to claim the space on the infinite dial, regardless of what the platform is --but it wouldn't be bad to establish the HD car radio as the place to hear KPIG, KCRW, KFOG, WLNG, or any of our greatest radio stations.

* Nationalizing HD would allow us to self-syndicate many of our best programs. What better way to amortize the cost of some of our best local talents than by making them available to people all over the country? What better way to keep our best talent from going to satellite radio?

* I wrote in 2006 about a plan to work with national brands to build instant credibility, e.g. having House of Blues create a blues channel, or Ben & Jerry's create a Triple A. This was a national/Internet strategy, which helps explain why it didn't achieve much currency of course. But wouldn't a national platform of HD stations actually get advertisers excited and perhaps involved?

* We are fooling ourselves if we think that today's HD channels are in 'service to the local community', and it is inconceivable to think that the resources are going to be there to serve in any other way than to string together songs. Freeing ourselves from any belief that we will engage in community service will lead to easier, national models.

* For what it's worth, the digital radio tier in the UK has made inroads in part by taking local stations national, and by building new national brands. Not everything done in the UK has been perfect, but it is something we should be modeling ourselves on more.

* Even the 'niche-iest' ideas would be more successful on a national platform than locally. We have long felt that if someone were to try to serve the Caribbean community in New York City, they would help sell a lot of radios. But it would still be more feasible on a nationwide basis.

I believe in HD Radio and have been trying throughout its history to offer constructive ideas to make it work. While I know that efforts are being undertaken to solve the myriad issues with regard to signals, availability of the hardware, marketing, costs etc., I ask our industry to continue to remember the programming. We need positive plans to create great programming that will get people to demand their HD.

You may not have heard much about legendary programmer Ron Jacobs since his much publicized salvos toward Randy Michaels in the early '00s. But for the last four months, he's been back in action as the programmer/host of what he describes as "my newest and final project," WhodaguyHawaii.com--a site/stream devoted to the "full spectrum of Hawaiian music from the turn of the 20th century to today."

As Jacobs notes, "Gazillions of people have honeymooned, served in military, attended school, vacationed, etc., here." And beyond those looking for an audio souvenir as the mainland weather gets colder, he also has an eye on all those HD-2 channels that broadcasters are looking to find content for.

At home, Hawaiian music has splintered into at least three formats since it first came to prominence on the FM dial nearly 20 years ago. The top-rated Hawaiian station, KINE, is No. 3 in the market (sometimes higher) and the younger leaning KCCN is No. 5. By comparison, the first of the market's Rhythmic Top 40s is No. 8 in the market.

The Hawaiian music I heard in my two stretches of Whoadguy listening tended toward the mellower, more traditional side. There's clearly a market for that; (if you stop at the airport gift shop looking for Hawaiian music to take home, it tends toward the traditional side, too, and it's also the music that has proven irresistable to TV music supervisors in recent years). I actually found myself wishing Jacobs would launch a second, more contemporary stream along the lines of the more rhythmic/reggae-flavored music that emerged in the '90s. But Jacobs' ambitions of being Hawaiian music HQ for a long-tail world certainly makes sense.

There was a side benefit of checking out Whodaguy this week. Jacobs links to the site of veteran TV comedy writer/broadcaster/play-by-play voice Ken Levine (aka "Beaver Cleaver" to '70s radio junkies). Levine's very funny account of the WGA picket line can be found here.

Having been pretty critical in recent weeks about the relative paucity of HD-2 choices in the New York area, it's only fair to call your attention to Susan Whitall's mostly positive article in Saturday's Detroit News calling listeners' attention to "The Secret Radio Dial." With the automakers as potential listeners, Detroit radio has been particularly dilligent about rolling out multicast channels, reflected by the 12 stations listed in the story and at least four others that don't get mentioned for some reason. (There's nothing about either Urban WJLB or Urban AC sister WMXD's channels. There's also no mention of the last two stations on the dial, WMGC and WDTW, as if an editor arbitrarily cut at 104.3 FM, which is too bad because WDTW's Country/Rock "Mother Trucker" is an interesting choice.)

Besides the much publicized WRIF "Riff-2" channel, Detroit does have a few things that aren't available in New York: pure jazz (WVMV-2), gold-based alternative (WDVD, reviving its old Planet 96.3 handle), a public radio music stream (WDET), and the aforementioned Mother Trucker. It also has a lot of the same things: two supersoft ACs (WNIC and WMGC), a N/T simulcast (WWJ-AM on WXTY's frequency), "Future CHR" (WKQI) and Deep Tracks classic rock (WCSX).

You may have read by now that the HD Radio Alliance has loosened its rules for the next year to allow limited sponsorships on HD-2 multicast channels, as well as making it easier for owners to change format on their HD-2 channels without clearing it with the other Alliance members. Stations are now also allowed to promote their own HD-2 channels instead of the generic HD Radio spots that have become a subject of derision in some quarters.

The best news here is that it shuts down the biggest excuse that most broadcasters have for the benign neglect that goes into most multicast channels: Why should I improve my HD-2 station if I can't make any money with it? Most HD-2 stations, despite their limited available over-the-air audience, still have Webstreams and broadcasters are doing a little better at selling those these days. And as we head toward The Infinite Dial, that is probably where most of these stations will be consumed anyway.

As for divvying the formats, I can only say that in New York, the previous rules never really served their purpose of keeping HD-2 channels away from existing formats or from each other. At least two HD-2 multicast formats in this market would seem to be direct competitors of terrestrial stations. WWPR-HD-2 (Power Latino) covers the same ground as WCAA (La Calle). The Gospel format on WRKS-HD-2 preceded a commercial Gospel format on rival Inner City's WLIB-AM, but it certainly didn't go away once there was a Gospel station available.

Then there's almost everybody else. Technically, Deep Cuts Classic Rock WAXQ-HD-2, Soft AC WLTW-HD-2, "Jack-FM" WCBS-FM-HD_2, and WPLJ's '70s and '80s stations are entirely different formats. (And I can certainly say that I've never heard Sammy Johns' "Chevy Van," a WPLJ-2 staple, on any other station.) But they all cover a lot of the same '70s/'80s territory as each other and (in most cases) their HD-1 counterparts.

Meanwhile, New York still has only one HD-2 station expressly devoted to new music (WHTZ-HD-2) or that could be said to be in any way targeted to the next generation of radio listeners (again WHTZ-2). It provides no special audience programming not already found on analog radio--it's hard to imagine that a Caribbean or Bollywood channel, or Clear Channel's existing gay-targeted channel, wouldn't find a larger New York audience willing to buy HD receivers than most of what exists now. And for all the '70s/'80s pop/rock overlap, there's not even a variety of old music: no Classic Country, no R&B Gold, no '80s Alternative, although all of those things exist on satellite radio.

I don't want to again belabor my lack of HD-2 choices--something that I've made a regular topic here. But a lot of the changes in the Alliance rules are the sort of common-sense things that many broadcasters we speak to have privately wished for. Multicast stations have been and will remain hampered by the same lack of resources that all stations deal with these days. So one hopes that these other changes will make it easier for the medium to move forward.

Heard tonight on WCBS-HD-2, New York's home of "Jack FM" ever since it was exiled to the HD-2/Webstream to make room for the return of Oldies (and imagine the trademark sound of Jack-FM voice Howard Cogan here): "ILikeJack.com: It's better than no Jack-FM at all."

The call came from somebody outside the business who had found an old Ross On Radio column about the former WRLL (Real Oldies 1690) Chicago and its pre-Beatles format. When the 1690 frequency became the new home of News/Talk WVON, the old format remained on-line and he continued to listen. But now, he said, even that stream was starting to filter in some music from the mid-to-late '60s. What about all those other stations I wrote about at the time, back in 2003-'04 when many in the industry were hoping that pre-Beatles Oldies would allow every Adult Standards station in America to update?

Sorry, many of those stations are gone as well: no more WWKB Buffalo, N.Y., WSAI Cincinnati, WCOL Columbus, Ohio, or WKAP Allentown, Pa. Of those stations, only WKAP got significant ratings traction for a while. Others, like WOKY Milwaukee, quickly settled in a mix of eras not that different from the FM stations they replaced. (I just checked out WOKY and it was playing "Lyin' Eyes.")

WRLL's Web stream, by the way, still plays a lot of pre-Beatles music. When I flipped them on, they were going from Little Willie John to Eddie Cochran to the Flamingos. But there was also "Michelle" by the Beatles and "Sunny Afternoon" by the Kinks. And even on new Oldies AMs like WMTR Morristown, N.J., and CKWW (AM580) Detroit that play some pre-Beatles songs that you don't usually hear elsewhere, you're still going to hear late '60s and even early '70s. Only the '50s channels on Sirius and XM continue to concentrate primarily on pre-Beatles and, remember, even they are adding a little early '60s to their original '50s emphasis.

A lot of the pre-Beatles Oldies AMs were claimed by the rise of Air America and liberal talk. And when the rush to blow up Oldies FMs slowed down a little this year, there wasn't the same sense of opportunity that had existed a few years ago. My favorite station for obscure oldies, WNYH Long Island, N.Y., plays a broad mix that ranges from standards to '70s with a lot of deep pre-Beatles in between. But they don't stream yet.

So it's hard if you're a purist. But here are some stations that might be worth checking out:

* KXKL (Kool 105) Denver's "Kool 105 Classics" HD-2 channel: Kool 105 has made the same era move into the '70s as most of its counterparts. But their HD-2 station has picked up the slack; it went from the Flamingos into the Ronettes into Paul Anka when I turned it on this morning.

* The "Real Oldies" format at the Clear Channel Format Lab: It was created by the same people who gave us WRLL, WSAI, and many of the others. But it now contains mid-to-late '60s as well.

* WMID Atlantic City: Again, I heard Mitch Ryder's "Sock It To Me! Baby," which is never a problem for me, but I also heard the Angels into Johnny Mathis' little-heard "Small World." And they bill themselves as "broadcasting from the doo-wop capital of the world."

* WMTR - As previously mentioned, they've moved into the late '60s and early '70s now--not nearly as deep as they were a year ago when it was possible to hear a Royal Teens song other than "Short Shorts." But there's still a lot of pre-Beatles music on there. And it's still the station I go to when I have an urge to hear "Killer Joe" by the Rocky-Fellers.

* Suburban Detroit's WPON, which bills itself as "talk and rare Oldies."

* WSAI's successor, WDJO, which has some of the same staffers and plays a 50/50 mix of pre- and post-Beatles.

For what it's worth, I miss the pre-Beatles AMs, too. I started listening to pop music in 1967, so a lot of the late '50s and early '60s are lost on me--particularly the Connie Francis/Neil Sedaka/Paul Anka ballads. But WSAI--the best of the category, I thought--was a well-produced, well-executed radio station, the kind that could make me sit through a song I didn't like. (Besides, they were all two-minute songs!) There are doubtlessly Internet-only stations specializing in pre-Beatles. But I'd rather hear them in the context of a full-service radio station.

But please chime in with your suggestions on pre-Beatles Oldies and where to hear them by clicking the comments tab above.

One aggrivation with HD Radio has been the paucity of HD-2/HD-3 multicast choices here in at Edison HQ in Somerville, N.J. Somerville is close enough to hear FM stations from New York, Philadelphia, Allentown, Pa., Trenton, N.J., Monmouth/Ocean, N.J., New Brunswick, N.J., and Morristown, N.J. But we can receive only one HD-2 station, the Christian talk/teaching side channel of the New York-targeted but locally based Christian AC WAWZ (Star 99.1).

So it was good to hear from Star OM Scott Taylor this afternoon that WAWZ has launched its HD-3 channel: a Christian CHR called 99.1-3: The Energy. Core artists are listed as Switchfoot, Skillet, Relient K., and Ayiesha Woods. Christian CHR is one of those formats that usually has to wait its turn in most markets behind Christian AC, rarely appearing on commercial and/or full-market signals. And that makes WAWZ-3 one of the few multicast choices available to a New Yorker that genuinely wouldn't be available on the dial otherwise. Until the new Website is up next week, you can hear the new station by clicking here.

I've gone on at length about how we'd be better off with national HD-2 stations like those available in the U.K. Digital radio brands are sufficiently established over there that there's even a "best station" trophy in the BT (British Telecom) Music Awards.This year it went to the BBC's national indie rock channel, 6Music, in case that's a spur to check them out. We are close to having our own national indie rock channels, of course--KCRW, Indie 103.1, etc. But this did get me thinking about whether a national music channel might be the best way for NPR to expand its reach. And now with the advent of the Bryant Park Project, they do have the morning show already.

To be fair, I've also been meaning to give the winners of the NAB's recent award for domestic HD2 multicast channels a nod. Detroit's WRIF-2 (Riff 2) has been written up here before. It was joined by KBCO Denver's live performance showcase, the Studio C Channel.

This morning's announcement from the HD Radio camp that CBS Radio, Clear Channel, Cumulus, Cox, Entercom and Greater Media are in the process of installing iTunes Tagging technology brought a swift response from Robert Unmacht of iN3 Partners, whose clients include Radio-Info.com.

Unmacht, who has weighed in on song tagging before here, is not the only person to suggest that radio is giving the iPod entirely too much currency, but his take is one of the most explicit.

"'Radio: helping to make Apple the standard in digital distribution,'" he writes.

"Odd that they hate satellite [radio] and support what will be a far bigger threat in 5-10 years.

"Apple has its eye on digital distribution in the broadband era: audio; video; film; records; information; books; radio.

"This move with HD is small in soooo many ways but it does help make Apple a standard, having HD buy into it now will make each future technology that much easier for Apple.

"Once it is a standard, how you get their products will not matter. One day you switch to the iPod in car receiver and radio as we knew it is gone."

Even taking a more benign view of the iPod/HD Radio interface, I'd still like the same effort to go into designing something else: the iPod-size combination HD radio/wireless Internet receiver. It's the one that lets you pick up any radio stream in the world, but because broadcasters have been pro-active in the design process, it's the one that helps you easily find any HD-2 channel, not just the ones in your market. Because while song-tagging technology might be nice to have, the Infinite Dial in my hand is the one that would go to the gym with me instead of the iPod.

On numerous occasions over the last year, it has been suggested that one of the most obvious solutions to HD Radio's problems in creating valid multicast channel content and radio's overall 12-24 crisis might be to just turn the HD-2 stations over to those darn kids--college students, in the spirit of the late '60s/early '70s development of FM Rock radio.

In the halls at NAB/R&R this week, the stories of the broadcasters who have actually done that are finally starting to pile up, and not just Greater Media's much-publicized WRIF-2 (Riff 2) Detroit, but also its Boston station, Radio You, heard on WBOS Boston's HD-2 channel since May. Then there's Bonneville's indie rock iChannel--the one successful national HD-2 service that anybody could name at yesterday's panel, "HD Programming: The New Frontier."

Also on that panel were Delmarva Broadcasting's Cynthia Morgan and Andy Mussaw, PD of WSTW Wilmington, Del.'s HD-2 modern rock channel Graffiti Radio. Graffiti had begun as a project of the under-30s at Delmarva, Morgan told the panel audience. Now, it's being syndicated to other stations for use on their side-channels.

The trades have been quick to embrace the news that Polk Audio's next version of the I-Sonic radio will allow HD Radio listeners to tag and download songs from the iTunes Music Store. Radio, snubbed by the last round of iPod upgrades, is understandably excited about any connection to the iPod.

But don't get too excited yet.

As iN3 Partners' Robert Unmacht points out, "If all these things happen, you get to [buy] your song for 99 cents:

"Radio Station must be in HD;

"Radio Station must Apple encode;

"Radio must have HD;

"Radio must have iPod dock;

"Radio must be able to read and collect encoded data;

"iPod must have correct software on it to collect stored data;

"iPod must be docked with its [own] computer (iPods work with only one iTunes program);

"The computer must be on-line;

"The song must be available from iTunes;

"Your song downloads and is ready for play in iTunes and on the iPod."

Beyond that, several observers have noted that radio is giving Apple and iTMS a lot of agenda-setting power these days. With Apple having made it clear that an Internet Radio turner is not yet coming to the radio, maybe some of HD Radio's manufacturers would be better served to come up with a handheld version of The Infinite Dial. And if they come up with one that just happens to hold 10,000 MP3s, they might also get me to switch from iPod and iTMS, something nobody has even come close to doing so far.

With the recent news that longtime KEEY (K102) Minneapolis APD/MD Travis Moon is headed for the PD job at WUBE/WYGY Cincinnati comes this reminder to check out two of the stations he's leaving behind. Although best known in trade publication world for K102, Moon is also PD of sister KQQL (Kool 108) and its HD-2 multicast channel Kool-1-0-Eighties. As reported earlier this year, Kool has evolved from Oldies to Classic Hits to what can best be described as a "party songs" format that ranges from "Time Won't Let Me" to "You Shook Me All Night Long," while the '80s channel can usually be relied on for some impressive depth two or three times an hour (they've just segued from Tracy Ullman's "They Don't Know" to Tom Petty's "Jammin' Me"). While I doubt that Moon's replacement is going to immediately turn his attention to weeding a HD-2 station's Selector, both stations are worth a listen in their current pre-PD-change form.

Last November, Edison's Ross on Radio column talked about purchasing the $99 HD radio that was on sale that weekend at Radio Shack. Finding the HD radio wasn't that hard--the salesman knew it was in stock and was able to find it on the floor, although it wasn't hooked up because it got no reception inside the store. At that time, the issues weren't just availability but content, processing, reception and more.

Nine months later, Inside Radio has done a spot check of New York electronics retailers to see who had receivers readily available. "At a Manhattan Best Buy, it took four queries to different employees to find the lone HD radio located amidst a sea of stereos," it reports. "At least the New York City [store] had an HD receiver in-stock. A Long Island branch didn't. And Circuit City--well, it's coming--they think." Sharper Image did the best job of having the receivers available and display.

Of course, the availability issues shouldn't come as too much of a surprise to record labels, who pay for price and position, but can't necessarily count on their advertised specials being prominent amidst the shrinking sales space given to records.

From the beginning, I've believed that it probably makes as much sense to use HD radio multicast channels to create or reinforce national brands. Having KROQ Los Angeles on HD-2 in Phoenix made sense to me. Putting resources into having a handful of real radio stations that could sound good in any market made sense to me--and how can you complain about giving up localism on the jockless, minimally produced stations that are so much of the multicast universe anyway?

And it also makes sense to put successful Internet radio brands on an HD multicast channel. So this report that WOXY.com, the Internet outpost of the one-time WOXY-FM Cincinnati, is now going to be heard as a side channel for public radio's WXVU Cincinnati, is a terrific idea. As an Internet-only station, WOXY has had its ups-and-downs, but we know that there are at least some people who would pay to hear it--something that can't be said about a lot of HD-2 channels.

Steve Tobak posts a great overview of the hitches with HD Radio adoption, primarily from Ibiquity's side of things, over on CNET. Amongst the highlights:

To add to the company's woes, last year the broadcasting industry ponied up $200 million in advertising funds to promote the new service, but nobody seemed to notice. Maybe that's because the advertising was on broadcasters' airwaves, which strikes me as a relatively narrow media plan.

It has been over a year since I wrote The Next Ten Years: Radio's Biggest Challenge, an article that generated lots of constructive feedback, criticism and most importantly, dialogue. In that article, I articulated the Human Resources challenge radio must confront if it intends to remain a competitive venture (a challenge that was one of our primary motivations for starting 30 Under 30). I know my colleagues in business school generally hated the "soft skills" classes, gravitating instead towards Operations or Equity Analysis, but no matter how brilliant your operational strategy, it gets executed by people. Attracting, retaining, managing and compensating people is where the rubber meets the road as far as the radio industry is concerned.

I think that issue is at the heart of a point made recently by the BBC's James Cridland. Cridland points out the lack of cross promotion on US (and UK) commercial radio, and notes that program directors are incentivized on their own station's results, not the performance of their group or cluster. I have even heard myself of programmers being advised to make their HD2 channels "unlistenable" to partisans of the main terrestrial signal, which may be the only fiscally responsible position at the station level, but is hardly good for the strategic positioning of HD.

What you measure, you get--until programmers are paid based upon the performance of a given cluster or station's entire suite of offerings (and not just the 25-54 rank of their terrestrial station) they will continue to drive those ratings at the expense of HD or Internet initiatives, and with the current HR strategy of most broadcasters, they are not wrong to do so.

For the last three days, the press reports about WCBS-FM New York's return to Oldies have been writing about it as a virtual certainty--even if nobody at CBS has actually confirmed it yet. So I thought it would be interesting to get a head start by throwing on WCBS-HD-2, the multicast channel/Internet station that has kept the Oldies format alive for the past two years under the yeoman's efforts of station veteran-turned-Internet PD Jeff Mazzei and programming coordinator Maria Martello.

That's not a casually offered shout-out there, by the way. The strategy of keeping a defunct radio station alive on the Internet, or now on an HD-2 channel, goes back at least five years. It usually lasts about three to six months. So it's impressive that WCBS-HD-2 has hung in this long, doing a '50s-through-'80s format reminiscent of the broad mix that the station offered through most of its history. And in an era where most terrestrial stations are cutting back resources, it is remarkable that WCBS-HD-2 sported a four-person staff and some hosted shifts.

And if you're one of the people who checks this blog on Sunday night, or gets new content alerts, you can actually hear one of those hosted shifts right now. All weekend, the station has been celebrating the 35th birthday of Oldies on WCBS-FM (or its HD-2 successor) with a series of Top 20 countdowns, including this one from the day the station launched in 1972. And after hearing a countdown that includes "Sylvia's Mother," "Alone Again (Naturally)," and the Donny Osmond version of "Too Young," you can understand how 1972 must have seemed like a pretty good time to launch an Oldies station, given the relative mushiness of pop music that summer.

For the last three days, the press reports about WCBS-FM New York's return to Oldies have been writing about it as a virtual certainty--even if nobody at CBS has actually confirmed it yet. So I thought it would be interesting to get a head start by throwing on WCBS-HD-2, the multicast channel/Internet station that has kept the Oldies format alive for the past two years under the yeoman's efforts of station veteran-turned-Internet PD Jeff Mazzei and programming coordinator Maria Martello.

That's not a casually offered shout-out there, by the way. The strategy of keeping a defunct radio station alive on the Internet, or now on an HD-2 channel, goes back at least five years. It usually lasts about three to six months. So it's impressive that WCBS-HD-2 has hung in this long, doing a '50s-through-'80s format reminiscent of the broad mix that the station offered through most of its history. And in an era where most terrestrial stations are cutting back resources, it is remarkable that WCBS-HD-2 sported a four-person staff and some hosted shifts.

And if you're one of the people who checks this blog on Sunday night, or gets new content alerts, you can actually hear one of those hosted shifts right now. All weekend, the station has been celebrating the 35th birthday of Oldies on WCBS-FM (or its HD-2 successor) with a series of Top 20 countdowns, including this one from the day the station launched in 1972. And after hearing a countdown that includes "Sylvia's Mother," "Alone Again (Naturally)," and the Donny Osmond version of "Too Young," you can understand how 1972 must have seemed like a pretty good time to launch an Oldies station, given the relative mushiness of pop music that summer.

For the last few weeks, there have been rumors in the Phoenix market that CBS was getting ready to flip that market's Free-FM affiliate, KZON to some form of Hip-Hop/R&B. Those rumors are finally coming to fruition with today's expected unveiling of the new 101.5 Jamz. It's not such a surprising move when you consider the success of Clear Channel's Mainstream Top 40 KZZP (Kiss 104.7) and the recent move of longtime Hip-Hop outlet KKFR (Power 92) from its longtime home to 98.3.

What's interesting here is KZZP's redeployment last Monday of its HD-2 multicast channel from Spanish Oldies to Hip-Hop as 104.7-2 Da Block, "Commercial Free Hip Hop." KZZP's move was hardly a deterrent. KKFR's vulnerability, if any, is being on a lesser signal and KZON announced its move three days later. But it's still curious to see a major broadcaster deploying an HD-2 multicast channel in the same way that a cluster owner might re-deploy, say, a Class-A FM on the main band.

For a frightening number of radio people of a certain age, listening to Casey Kasem's "American Top 40" on the weekends was a gateway into the concept of radio programming, specifically interest in the national charts and the notion that there might be hits other than the ones that the local CHR station had chosen to offer. For those people, it was excitement enough that Premiere Radio Networks began syndicating vintage AT40s from the '70s and '80s.

But my chart junkie brethern no longer have to wait for the weekend. Premiere owner Clear Channel is nowrunning the AT40 shows from the '80s non-stop as one of its Clear Channel Format Lab offerings. At this writing, Casey is counting down the top 100 hits of 1986 and very earnestly explaining what a street busker is as a way of setting up Dire Straits' "Walk Of Life." And as has been said elsewhere about the reissued shows themselves, the "American Top 40 Classics" channel is also a good way to hear Kasem the way that listeners experienced him in the '70s and '80s--as the authority on music news and not just the guy railing at his staff about an ill-placed dedication.

...is an HD radio from Amazon. Check out this page I pulled off their site a while back:

What's wrong with this picture? Better dig deep into your purses, Moms of America!

For all the air time that now goes to promoting the vendors of HD Radio, I've encountered surprisingly few radio station giveaways of HD receivers. Unlike the '70s, when FM converters were a regular giveaway, it's not a cheap prize. And it's already very clear from the on-air product that many broadcasters don't have much of a discretionary budget for their HD multicast stations. So it's worth mentioning that wiith the sale of WXGG (George 104) Washington, D.C., to Radio One, former owner Bonneville is promoting the move of George's Classic Hits/Hot AC hybrid format to WTOP's HD-2 multicast channel by giving away 103 HD radios.

Okay, so if WLTW New York is suddenly downplaying the "Lite" word after more than 20 years, what is its "Classic Lite" HD-2 multicast channel doing?

Listened to WLTW-2 this morning and the word "Classic Lite" handle was still there. But even in HD-2, the use of the word "lite" had given way to some drops that referred to the station only as "106.7, HD-2." In 45 minutes or so of listening, the lite and non-lite identifiers were rotating roughly every other break.

The "Classic Lite" handle is still on the HD-2 station's logo as well, but has been downplayed along the lines of WLTW-1's logo as well.

And here's the station we heard this morning at 11:40 a.m.:

Andy Gibb, "Shadow Dancing"
Chris DeBurgh, "The Lady In Red"
Jim Croce, "Operator (That's Not The Way It Feels)"
John Lennon, "(Just Like) Starting Over"
Crosby Stills Nash & Young, "Teach Your Children"
Paul Davis, "Cool Night"
O'Jays, "Love Train"
Righteous Brothers, "Ebb Tide"
Steve Perry, "Foolish Heart"
Tony Bennett, "Who Can I Turn To"
Andrew Gold, "Thank You For Being A Friend"
Jr. Walker & All-Stars, "What Does It Take (To Win Your Love)"

Ever wonder what Clear Channel's version of Radio Disney would sound like? That answer now provided, courtesy of CC's mainstream Top 40 WAKS (96.5 Kiss FM) Cleveland, which recently unveiled an HD-2 multicast channel, KiWi Radio. On the Kiss Website, KiWi is billed as a station for listeners who "like the music on 96-5 Kiss FM, but . . . also like Hannah Montana, the Jonas Brothers, High School Musical, Jesse McCartney, etc." The channel is being produced by WAKS PD Bo Matthews for the Clear Channel Format Lab.

When heard on March 7, KiWi was a much less elaborately produced tween-targeted format--one place where most of the alternate platform services I've heard haven't been able to (or tried to) compete with Radio Disney. The percentage of music typically heard on Mainstream Top 40 was higher and Radio Disney's extensive catalog of exclusive songs was very cherrypicked. Here's the half-hour I heard:

Beyonce/Irreplaceable
Everlife/I Could Get Used To This
Vanessa Carlton/Ordinary Day
Daughtry/It's Not Over
Melissa Joan Hart/One Way Or Another
Backstreet Boys/Larger Than Life
Bowling For Soup/1985
Hannah Montana/If We Were A Movie
Chris Brown/Excuse Me Miss
Katherine McPhee/Over It

And in case you're wondering, the Bowling For Soup song--heard, like a number of others, in a very altered form on Radio Disney was a little less so here. The line about the mom who takes one Prozac a day remains in. And her lifelong ambition to "shake her ass/on the hood of Whitesnake's car" is altered--the offending body part is obscured--but not replaced altogether as it is in the Disney version.

Heard my first spot for HD Radio at The Sharper Image this afternoon. And what stood out was one interesting piece of verbiage--specifically, the opening lines: "Right now, you're listening to regular radio. And that's good. But it's not HD Radio." Thought that was an intriguing attempt at addressing--in an admittedly small way--one of HD's many issues: the confusion created over the last year for listeners who hear all those legal IDs about "now broadcasting in HD" and think they're hearing HD Radio already.

By the way, when I first clicked on the Sharper Image site, the first thing I saw was a gigantic plug for HD Radio that took up about three-fifths of the screen. That turned out to be only one of five rotating panels, but HD Radio was still considerably more prominent on the site than on the Radio Shack site last Thanksgiving when the latter retailer put $99 HD Radios on sale.

How optimistic are broadcasters about the prospects of HD Radio? Phyllis Stark, the newly named executive editor of Radio-Info.com (and a longtime Billboard/Country Airplay Monitor staffer) has been tracking that question since 2005. This year, she reports, the percentage of Country programmers who think HD Radio will benefit their industry in the long haul falls from 70% to 52%. On the other hand, the number of PDs who feel that the next wave of technology could make HD Radio obsolete before it ever gets traction jumps from 18% to 47%.

On the other hand, at least 50% of Country programmers see the new iPhone as at least a "moderate threat."

Last week, the UK's most recent RAJAR data was released, and the results were extremely encouraging for British broadcasters. The headline stat, of course, was that more people than ever are listening to the radio in the UK--a record 45 million persons, or about 90% of the population. The primary reason for this growth has been broadcasters' platform-neutral approach to radio. By getting their product squeezed through every possible distribution channel, they have taken the decidedly 'Web 2.0' (and 1.0) approach of building audience first, and cracking the revenue model later. As a result, not only is the reach of terrestrial radio at an all-time high, but the use of other digital platforms to listen to radio is also rising dramatically. For example, almost 8 percent of the 15+ population has listened to radio on their mobile phone. This stat is currently almost unattainable here in the States, where our mobile phones rarely even have a tuner. Of course, getting tuners into mobile phones in the UK was as much a product of intense lobbying by the BBC as it was consumer demand--but, there you go. Maybe our lack of phone-tuners is just lack of effort after all.

Internet radio usage is also continuing to rise (as it is here, and we will soon have some fresh data on that score) and 39% of UK adults have listened to radio over their TV sets. The number that HD fans and foes alike have found solace in is the fact that 16% of UK adults own a DAB receiver. I'll come back to that point in a moment, but the big takeaway here is that by encouraging--and not stifling--the use of radio on other platforms, UK broadcasters are growing their industry. While useless debates rage on here with AFTRA and Harry Fox, broadcasters in the UK have done everything in their power to foster the development of Internet Radio, Podcasting and other digital platforms. Broadcasters have made it easier for UK listeners to consume time-shifted radio content, and listeners have responded by doing so--in record numbers. Here is where "The Paradox of Choice" has not stifled consumption, but clearly encouraged it.

There are some obvious conclusions here. One, certainly, is to fix that AFTRA thing already. Listening to Internet radio in the states is painful--we can't continue to preach about fixing what is "between the records" when what goes on in that space on our streams is...unspeakable. Another would be for high-level radio execs to start talking aggressively to Microsoft. Unlike the iPod and its typical (for Apple) closed-loop environment, the Zune has (gasp!) a pretty good FM tuner. Now Microsoft is working on a Zune phone to compete with the iPhone, and as long as it doesn't match the iPhone's hideous retail price, I wouldn't bet against it (and I am the only, stubborn Mac user in the company.) Broadcasters need to lobby hard to be sure there is at minimum an FM tuner and preferably an HD receiver built into the Zune Phone.

But there is a deeper point to be made here--and this goes back to the 16% penetration of DAB in the UK. DAB receivers are overwhelmingly home units--not installed in vehicles--and the UK model is actually proving successful by reaching people who want compelling audio content in their homes. The UK model is certainly different, with a separate tier of options removed entirely from the AM/FM band. But while many pundits in our business are just waiting for in-car WiFi to kill radio and its 'captive audience' for good, UK broadcasters have come up with a product that is compelling in the most competitive environment of all--the living room.

How have they been able to do this? Simple--necessity is the mother of invention. Broadcasters have thus far had it easy here in the US, with our wide urban streets, plentiful parking garages, suburban sprawl and monstrous ex-urban commutes. No such luck in the UK. Because UK broadcasters must succeed out of the car, they do. Now, so do we.

Here is what Southwest Airlines has to do with all of this. When Reagan deregulated the airline industry, most commercial carriers didn't even blink--they just kept plugging away with the suddenly irrelevant hub-and-spoke system, and failed to grasp what their new mission must be. Southwest, on the other hand, came into the business fresh, able to clear away the cruft of the old system, and find new, more profitable ways to ferry listeners from point to point that eliminated the decaying architecture of the hub-and-spoke system. The airlines hub-and-spoke system is, essentially, our AM/FM-based architecture. Regardless of whether or not the FCC accelerates or reverses consolidation, radio has already been deregulated. Though a handful of broadcasters here in my hometown of RDU have been granted "exclusive" spectrum licenses, sitting here at Starbucks as I type this I can listen to anything in the world I want to, and I do.

What the industry desperately needs is a Southwest Airlines to come in with a radically different model--to amalgamate saleable numbers of passionate listeners, no matter what the platform, using the AM/FM band as a promotional tool. Because the current crop of broadcasters are tied to their own hub-and-spoke system of quarterly books, an increasingly ill-prepared sales function and a failure to understand that radio station websites should be at the other end of the funnel, we are stuck maintaining hundreds of gates at DFW when our listeners can (and do) go anywhere they want, and grab any content they want, with little to no friction.

It's time for a Southwest to come into radio and change the rules.

You don't read much about the "black progressive" format that showed up on a handful of R&B outlets in the early-to-mid '70s. While its most prominent practitioner was WBLS New York's Frankie Crocker, other outlets included WAMO-FM Pittsburgh (which billed itself as "Black Rock") and WHUR Washington, D.C. The latter is using its HD-2 outlet "WHUR World" as a throwback to that era, offering an eclectic R&B/jazz format that has earned it praise from Ross On Radio readers and the Washington Post's Marc Fisher both.

"WHUR World" is also impressive for being hosted in afternoons. And both WHUR and its HD-2 are offering listeners a "HD Club Card," the first promotion I'm aware of that actually tries to create some community around HD Radio.

Here's a set of WHUR World on the afternoon of Jan. 9:

Hiroshima, "Save Yourself For Me"
Take 6, "Spread Love"
Diana Krall, "The Night We Called It A Day"
Maxwell, "This Women's Work"
Javier, "Ways I'm Feeling You"

Since its launch 18 months ago, WRIF Detroit's younger targeted "Riff 2" has been one of the HD-2 multicast channels that best defines HD Radio's potential, both in the care-and-feeding that go into its execution, and in its willingness to target the younger listeners that most radio stations don't. Now, the station has announced that on Jan. 20-21, heritage rocker WRIF will be turned over to the newer station's format and airstaff for a "RIFF 2" weekend.

Using a special weekend to promote an HD-2 channel isn't new. WLTW (Lite 106.7) New York has been doing Classic Lite weekends for nearly a year. But it's not hard to find a way to package an all-oldies weekend (and WLTW had various reasons for wanting to do them that went beyond just promoting an HD-2 station). It's harder to find the right vehicle for going newer. (The last good one I heard was in 1982--yes, 1982--when WHUR Washington, D.C., counterprogrammed everybody's New Year's Day countdowns by playing new superstar releases.)

Once I bought an HD radio, it didn't really matter to me how many HD multicast channels there were nationally. It didn't matter to me how many HD stations were available on the Internet. (After all, I had three-fourths of what I might want to listen to from around the world on the Internet already.) What I wanted was the most possible new choices available when I turned that radio on. What I got, as previously documented, was about 10 new channels and about six that I might listen to with any regularity.

But in many ways, broadcasters have been using the overall number of new multicast options to sell the excitement of HDRadio, at least to those of us in the industry. So here's the next device we need: a combination HD/wireless Internet radio tuner that will allow you to get ANY local signal or any Internet signal. Maybe Cambridge Consultants needs to meld an HD radio with its upcoming battery-operated WiFi Internet radio, expected to retail for as little as $50.

That raises the question, of course, of why somebody would still need HDRadio for $99 if there's a wireless Internet tuner for $50. The snide thing to do would be to leave that question to HD's proponents, but I'll take a swing at it: I'd still like my local stations in HD quality and my local HD multicast stations available on a push-button in digital quality. But since so much of the wisdom of launching multicast stations is less tied to the fate of HD Radio as to the ultimate wireless broadband dial, it seems like these multicast stations should stake out a special place in listeners' awareness now. And being able to offer somebody hundreds of digital stations, not just a handful, is key.

After the initial rush of publicity that followed the announcement of HD-2 multicast channels in many markets, I didn't see much in the consumer press about them. So it's interesting that there were two nearly identical shoutouts over the weekend. In Ben Fong-Torres' Sunday radio column in the San Francisco Chronicle, his rundown of places where one can still hear Oldies in the Bay Area includes KOIT San Francisco's HD-2 channel, Real Oldies, as well as a listener recommendation for WCBS-FM New York's HD-2/Internet continuation of its previous Oldies format.

Meanwhile, Sarasota Herald-Tribune columnist Dawn Scire directs some expatriate New Yorkers, looking for an all-news service like WINS or WCBS-AM, to WUSF-HD-2's 24-hour news/public affairs service.

Being written about more often as a viable programming choice is good news for multicasters. And while it seems like this sort of plug might be more likely to generate on-line listening than an HD Radio purchase, it's one more reason to make sure these stations are new-cume-worthy.

In the recent dialogue that has developed here on the Radio Shack Accurian HD Radio and what I saw as its surprising lack of dynamism, a reader makes an excellent point: "The average radio listener has no clue whether he's listening to "high definition audio" or a fine piece of vinyl played on an excellent turntable with a well maintained analogue audio chain and transmitter delivering it." He goes on to say, "the number one station in this market right now is an all talk AM. So what's wrong with this picture?"

I've never been an audiophile by any stretch of the imagination. At age 16, when the rest of the world had long moved to FM for music, I was the guy still DX'ing CKLW Detroit and WKBW Buffalo on the car radio to howls of protest from the rest of the family which would have rather heard a station that was actually coming in clearly. As a radio programmer, I would have had no way of proving that my Oldies station was out of phase if it weren't for all those Motown records we played with hard stereo separation where half the vocal occasionally disappeared when the processing wasn't right. And never having bought a piece of audiophile sound equipment in my life, I would never have bought HD Radio for the sound quality alone.

I finally shelled out for a HD receiver because I wanted more stations--even with satellite radio at home and so much of the world's radio available on the Internet--not because of the sound quality. And while it's hard to say what satellite radio's silver bullet is, or if they've truly found one, programming choice and quality of content are probably driving more sales than CD sound quality.

That said, I still wanted to hear something recognizably different about the sound quality of the Accurian when I switched it on. Too much to expect from a table radio? Well, the Bose Wave Radio is a table radio, too. So even as a relatively tolerant, content-driven listener, I have expecations on that score. I wanted to hear consistent sound quality and levels from station to station, from HD-1 to HD-2. And in the same way that Motown's best sounding '60s hits were engineered to sound great on the cheapest AM transistor, programmers and CEs had better process their stations so even a listener with a "tin ear" will have the best possible experience, 'cause even if you bought the radio for content, there's still an "HDRadio" logo in front of you.

After the original column was published, one programmer wrote me to suggest that it was unrealistic to expect a station to spend thousands of dollars to create a viable audio chain on stations that can't yet generate revenue. Again, it seems odd to devote any resources to HD multicast stations at this point, for that reason. The number of available listeners is low (and even with the HDAlliance's positive report on Radio Shack sales, we haven't seen any report on the number of units that moved). And yet, we all know what a good first impression is worth, and how much more it costs down the road if you don't make one.

When I posted yesterday's column on my first listen to Radio Shack's $99 Accurian HD Radio, I braced for a certain amount of negative feedback from advocates of HD, particularly given some of what I encountered: HD-2 channels that were promised, but not on the air; sound quality that often lacked the expected punch; very few multicast stations that seemed to be taking advantage of the medium or at least the available new cume, if, as stated by the alliance folks, the Radio Shack special was indeed finally putting some receivers into homes.

But most of the feedback was surprisingly affirmative and a lot of it came from people somehow connected with HD Radio, multicast stations, and the like. Obviously, there are a lot of people who want HD Radio and multicast stations to work. That doesn't meant they have the time or resources they need because, after all, who in radio does right now?

After a few more days with my market's HD-2 (and HD-3) offerings, there are certainly some feeds that are better tended than others. Oddly, a few remind me of the decidedly low-tech "WRNO Worldwide," the automated shortwave adjunct of WRNO New Orleans that I used to hear in the '80s, playing an odd mix of AOR and '70s Oldies. In other words, bizarrely fascinating for a radio person, but maybe not for a consumer. A lot of them are in that netherworld between "good enough to stand alone on the regular FM band" and "special enough to compel even a $99 radio purchase."

To see some of the feedback: click here.

In this morning's Inside Radio, the HD Alliance's Peter Ferrara says that Radio Shack was "overwhelmed" by the sales of its Accurian HD Radio at a special post-Thanksgiving price of $99. But if potential new converts finally began bringing home HD-equipped receivers in substantial numbers this weekend, what did they hear? On my new Accurian, I found only 10 of the 16 multicast stations I was promised and very little that took advantage of the medium's possibilities, much less the new cume. For the full report, and some thoughts on how to best capitalize on the new traffic, check out this week's Ross On Radio.

Editor's Note: This week, we welcome Adam Jacobson to the Infinite Dial. Just as our tagline says, we want the Infinite Dial to be the industry's home for constructive dialogue on the future of audio entertainment. Want to join the conversation? We welcome your comments, of course, but we are also happy to post your original content. All we ask is that you read a couple of week's worth of this blog to get the flavor of what we are trying to do, and email me with your ideas. The Infinite Dial is not about punditry--it's about great radio, wherever it is found. To paraphrase Frasier Crane, we're listening! Now, here's Adam:

Last Friday I had the pleasure of visiting the corporate office of a publicly traded radio company, one that is a member of the HD Digital Radio Alliance.

The longtime company veteran that I met with is involved with many different initiatives at the moment, but perhaps the biggest thing on this executive's plate is HD Radio. The company's push for HD -- along with similar pushes around the industry -- is perhaps Task No. 1 in ensuring continued listening to its AM and FM properties across the U.S.

Interestingly, every office in this company's corporate headquarters had a Boston Acoustics Receptor Radio. In the particular office I visited, the radio was placed near the office's second-floor window.

After discussing our dismay in the sudden disappearance of the HD Radio Station Links page I created for RadioandRecords.com -- a decision made with the transition in control of Radio and Records editorial from Los Angeles to New York following its acquisition by VNU -- I asked the exec I was visiting if I could play with the Receptor Radio. I had yet to see an actual HD Radio, even though that was part of my news beat at R&R for the last several months.

I went over to the radio with the knowledge that two of the company's stations in the market where this company is located -- one AM, one FM -- were now broadcasting in HD. I first went to the FM station, a Top 40. After less than a second, the Receptor Radio detected the HD signal and immediately shifted from the analog to digital broadcast. It was remarkable for two reasons.

First and foremost, the signal is super-crisp. The music sounds as if it is straight off a CD. The air talent's voice when cracking the mike is equally as crisp. This could present a challenge for engineers that have spent years perfecting the sound of a high-energy, in-your-face CHR that needs to "pop" out of the radio. For years a flip of the radio dial to WHTZ (Z100)/New York was obvious -- those with sharp ears didn't even need to look at the radio to realize that they were listening to Z100. The station "sounded like" Z100. With HD Radio, a station may not "sound like" the station as it does on an analog radio -- something very few radio executives may be thinking about and something engineers may need to think about when calibrating the harmonics, exciters and other equipment to make the digital signal stand out and "pop".

The other perhaps bigger concern is the reach of the HD signal. It does not mirror the analog signal's contour -- not by a long shot. This company's executive offices are about 20 miles from the transmitter of its CHR station in its home market; while the FM's signal was quite good in digital and the HD-2 digital offering currently under construction sounded fine, the digital AM signal was very difficult to pull in and keep from dropping.

One issue I had with the Receptor when going to the AM station broadcasting in HD was the 10-cent plastic antenna that was being used to pull in the HD signal on a $300 audio device. Placing the antenna in the window strategically was the only way to pull in the HD signal for the AM station. Even then, it faded in and out consistently.

But here is the plus: When the HD signal kicks in on the AM, the hisses and pops caused from distant thunderstorms and the hum in the signal from nearby electronics in use disappeared like magic. The audio quality was practically like a FM mono broadcast. It was a vast improvement and will very much help AM radio stations in the years ahead.

But that's the thing. HD Radio on both AM and FM will help the radio industry in the years ahead. It will not help the radio industry today, tomorrow or in the next 12 to 24 months. Programming is scarce and the HD2 and HD3 situation is very similar to the launch of FM radio programming in 1967. WOR-FM in 1968 offered a Top 40 format that was quite revolutionary and a relief from the 30-odd records repeated over and over on WABC. However, how many people actually listened to FM radio in New York in 1968? A few that discovered how great psychadelic rock sounded on WNEW, and a few that discovered how great classical music sounded on WQXR-FM, compared to 1560 kHz.

But with FM's commercial ramp-up in 1968, there were several differences to the launch of HD Radio today. First and foremost is receivers, and affordable receivers at that. Even though most radio listening was to AM stations, most home stereo units by the late 1960s had FM capability. Today, very very few home stereo units offer digital radio as a built-in option.

Meanwhile, the vast improvement in broadcast technology with the switch from AM to FM can't be replicated with the switch from analog to digital broadcasts because radio has been usurped by the iPod and by XM Satellite Radio. Sorry, Sirius -- your audio quality lacks verve and is comparable to a 56k modem stream.

Quality programming and a bigger signal contour for a digital signal are the two most essential things radio companies need to consider when making the leap to HD. It is costly, and will yield tremendous dividends in the years ahead. But think of the programming options for multichannel stations and think of how and where your digital signal will be used.

Then proceed confidently yet cautiously. The HD Highway is filled with speed bumps and rest areas, but the right start now can yield to a smooth drive tomorrow.

Adam Jacobson was most recently the Management/Marketing/Sales Editor for Radio & Records. He has also written on radio and music for the Miami Herald and is currently a correspondent for Hispanic Market Weekly.

 The Digital Radio Development Bureau reports that UK retailer Dixons is going to stop selling analogue radios in their stores.  For those inclined to read this as another "sky is falling" post, please note the reason why: digital radios (now available for as little as 30 pounds) are outselling analogue radios by a ratio of 30:1.  This is not a death knell for radio--it is a positive development for radio's future. The devil, as always, is in the details--but if HD can follow DAB's lead, let's hope that Best Buy reports the same news a few years from now.

When ABC/Disney agreed to sell its radio stations to Citadel several months ago, it was quietly mentioned that Disney would be hanging on to its owned stations for Radio Disney and ESPN Radio. While many (correctly) commented that Disney was not about to cede control of anything connected to its brands to an outsider, perhaps we all missed the point on just how smart these two brands are.

On an Infinite Dial, with endless choices for audio entertainmnet and information, the power of the brand goes from important to crucial. Think about the Internet. While billions of pages are available and used, there are only a handful of brands that truly mean anything -- Google, Amazon, MySpace, etc.

The same is almost inevitable for audio/radio. A limited list of brands will dominate the space. When one thinks of sports one already thinks of the uber-dominant ESPN brand. No matter the platform, ESPN Radio is increasingly THE brand for Sports news, talk and play-by-play. Only a handful of powerful local brands are competitive.

Similarly, when one thinks of family entertainment, Disney is of course by far the most potent brand. Radio Disney is an under-appreciated powerhouse. While the fact that Arbitron (currently) produces ratings ages 12+ limits what one sees for Radio Disney stations in the numbers...enormous numbers of 6-11 year olds simply must be listening. Want proof? The top selling CD of the year so far is the "High School Musical" soundtrack. With music that has not appeared on the radio anywhere on AM or FM but on Radio Disney.

It is worth noting the platform agnosticism of each of these brands as well -- both are on Satellite (each is on BOTH XM and Sirius!) and they are streamed as well. And they would, in many markets, make for much better radio for HD than many of the offerings currently out there.

The deep thinkers of media increasingly argue that 'synergy' didn't work. Guess they haven't looked at these two strong examples.

HD Radio has the potential to not only give listeners new formats, but also to take endangered formats and keep them alive by moving them to secondary channels. For all this to work, however, we have to do a better job educating our "sales force"

For example, recently I visited one of the large electronic retailers and asked them if they had HD radios for sale. The salesperson looked at me as if I had no idea of what I was talking about. They thought I was talking about satellite radio. It made me instantly realize that if HD Radio is going to make any headway against the new media platforms, it is going to have to start first by making sure the big retailers are not only carrying the product, but ensuring that the staffs at these retailers are educated on the product.

The recent Arbitron/Edison study about price point is also key. XM and Sirius have done aggressive marketing to promote their product – and terrestrial broadcasters must do the same. We need to make it reasonable on a cost level for the consumer – but we also need to do more than deliver a jukebox.

In Listen up: HD radio struggling to be heard (Boston Herald), WJMN Program Director Cadillac Jack talks about getting HD radio off the ground, and the article quotes our recent research on the interest in HD radio (and its price point). The article mentions a $100 price point, but $50 is more like it, according to our study (and, in fact, the article got our data considerably wrong--it isn't even close to "nearly half" who said they would buy an HD radio at that price point, but more like 21%.)

Of course, it could cost a dollar and collect dust on the shelves without compelling content, but as long as folks like Cadillac are working on that, I'll stay optimistic.

XM Satellite Radio is about to launch Willie's Place, hosted by Willie Nelson, in the space once inhabited by Hank's Place. Nelson's channel will continue to feature the same brand of classic country found on its predecessor, plus exclusive new programs and interviews with the country legend-cum-truckers' icon-cum-biodiesel evangelist.

Recently, Larry Rosin wrote an article about just this sort of thing on the Edison website, called "A Positive Plan for HD Radio." In it, Larry talked about leveraging powerful brands and personalities (anything from Ben and Jerry's Radio to 'Joel Osteen HD') to "piggyback" on established brands and brand images to give HD the head start it needs. Certainly, getting Oprah might be a dream deal (and a costly one) but this deal with Willie absolutely exemplifies what HD could do to get a head-start building brands, and presumably cost a lot less.

I think you can hear exactly what Willie's place will sound like, and exactly who it will be attractive to, without ever listening to a note. I will certainly hear some Waylon and Merle along with Willie, plus a big heaping ladle-full of Willie's brand of anti-big governement, anti-oil company and anti-IRS rhetoric, with loads of shout outs to the folks plowing the fields and driving the big rigs (with XM radios installed) all across America. I get that. It is hard to build new audio entertainment brands. Frank Cody once told me that if you can figure out what people expect you to be, then just be that thing, you will be successful. I don't have to guess what Willie's Place will sound like--just be that thing, and the folks filling up their diesel Jettas with canola oil will be there in droves.

Today I decided I wanted to listen to some Country music while doing some work. Living here in the New York City area, I said to myself: "How about some Country music, New York style?". So I decided to tune into WKTU-FM's HD2 Channel over the Internet.

Boy was it hard.

First, I went to www.wktu.com. Amazingly, WKTU does not own that URL. So, I had to google to find out it is actually www.ktu.com. I now encourage you to go to this site to find your way to their HD2 station, or any information about it. Go ahead, I'll wait here.

That's right...there is NOTHING anywhere on WKTU's site about their HD2 Channel -- nor for that matter is there anything about HD2 at all.

So I googled "WKTU HD2" which brings this URL as the top match: www.ktu.com/cc-common/hdradio/ OF COURSE! Where else would I have looked for WKTU's HD2 Channel?

Anyhow, once there, I heard a perfectly serviceable but utterly uninteresting Country stream, that doesn't tell Title and Artist and provides no added value. It says it is made for New York, but apparently doing that means playing the first two notes, and just the first two notes, of "New York, New York" between every fifth song or so.

Since its launch in late 2004, iconoclastic Classic Hits (iconoclassic hits?) station WKLU Indianapolis has become an interesting mix with elements of both '70s deep cut progressive rock radio and '70s top 40. That always made me wonder what owner Russ Oasis would do with an Oldies station (or, for that matter, Top 40). After all, if somebody spikes "Legend Of A Mind" by the Moody Blues on a Classic Hits station, what would they play on their Oldies outlet?

The answer is now available on "KLU-HD-2 Gold," one of the two new multicast stations streaming, along with WKLU, at www.klu.net/home.php. (The other station is "KLU-HD-3, the Club," Oasis' version of Jammin' Oldies.) Although it's positioned as Oldies, KLU-2 is less a traditional station than a poppier mirror image of WKLU, in terms of era. It's mostly '70s, but with some odd '60s spikes as well. (As I write, it's playing the Mamas & the Papas rarely heard 'Twelve Thirty.'")

KLU-2 is up to 1,300 titles so far and Oasis, emphasizing that the station is still a work in progress, says there are another 500 titles on the way. There's also a jingle package--the package heard on the Drake Solid Gold stations of the early '70--which, by itself, is a pretty formidable expenditure for a multicast station. And there's some punchy imaging, including:

* Not AM, not FM, but HD . . . and it's free;
* In a house . . . in a car . . . In A Gadda-Di-Vida;
* When Jack replaced Gold, that was the final straw. We're now returning your music to its rightful owners, you!"
(That line is a reference to the former WGLD, now "Jack FM" WJJK.)

Here's a recent hour of WKLU 2

Creedence Clearwater Revival, "Fortunate Son"
Guess Who, "Albert Flasher"
Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds, "Falling In Love"
Average White Band, "Pick Up The Pieces"
Al Green, "Tired Of Being Alone"
Billy Preston, "Nothing From Nothing"
Grass Roots, "I'd Wait A Million Years"
Box Tops, "Cry Like A Baby"
Crosby Stills & Nash, "Just A Song Before I Go"
Stevie Wonder, "Sir Duke"
Loggins & Messina, "Your Mama Don't Dance"
Marvin Gaye & Tammi Terrell, "You're All I Need To Get By"
Lovin' Spoonful, "Summer In The City"
Dave Clark Five, "Bits And Pieces"
Elton John, "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road"
Albert Hammond, "It Never Rains In Southern California"
Mamas & the Papas, "Twelve Thirty (Young Girls Are Coming To The Canyon)"
Stevie Wonder, "Fingertips, Part II"
Doobie Brothers, "Take Me In Your Arms (Rock Me A Little While)"